PrEP needs to be made more accessible to all – here’s why and how we do it
One year since Terrence Higgins Trust released its Not PrEPared report, the charity is urging the government “to be ambitious, bold and unambiguous” in tackling inequity of access to HIV prevention drug PrEP.
WORDS BY GREG OWEN, TERRENCE HIGGINS TRUST’S PREP LEAD, AND DEBBIE LAYCOCK, THE CHARITY’S HEAD OF POLICY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS HEADER IMAGE BY YOSEF PHELAN It’s been one year since we released our Not PrEPared report with partners National AIDS Trust, One Voice Network, Prepster and Sophia Forum to examine the state of access in England to the highly effective HIV prevention pill Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) – and that state was poor.
The report surveyed 1,120 people who had tried to access PrEP in the previous 12 months, and struggled to do so. Over half (65 per cent) of respondents were totally unable to access the drug via an NHS PrEP service.
We know from data presented at BASHH in 2019 that in one clinic alone, nine gay men who were on a waiting list to access PrEP through the PrEP Impact trial, acquired HIV while waiting for a trial space.
